Great men are bad men

Columnist

British parliamentarian and historian Lord Acton is famous for his 1887 pronouncement, in a letter to the Bishop of London, Mandell Creighton, that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

Many of you, however, may not have heard the words following that sentence: "Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you add the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority."

It's a much debated question of history - do you have to be bad to be great? - and it's one that begins with how you define the word "great".

I'm sure many of us would claim to know great men or women in our lives, but I'd wager almost none of them will be discussed outside a very obscure group (their relatives) in 100 years.

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In 1000 years? Well, I'll go out on a limb and say none of the people you consider great will be remembered, analysed or discussed by English speakers, let alone students of languages other than English, from non-Western cultures.

If you apply that criterion, the great men (and women) of history is a pretty select group.

You'd have to throw Jesus in there, Mohammed, Confucius, Buddha, then I'd wager dudes like Alexander the Great (he does have the right name), Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napolean, Atilla the Hun and Hitler would make the top 100.

This is not to say men like Johannes Gutenberg (the inventor of the printing press), Ts'ai Lun (the Chinese official who invented paper), Pasteur, Galileo, Euclid, Darwin, Marx and Newton wouldn't get a guernsey, it's just they don't roll off the tongue of your average person in the street.

In that sense, many people are influential - such as the inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee, as well as historical figures as diverse as Copernicus, Lavoisier, Faraday, Edison, Marconi and Daguerre. But "great"?

Hmmmm.

Popular history and philosophy broadcaster Dan Carlin poses this question in one of his enormously entertaining Hardcore History podcasts when he asks: "Would you be willing to order the killing of an innocent woman or child?"

"If you said you would not be willing to do that, you are already off the potential 'great person' list - at least in terms of world leaders," Carlin says

"Even the most humanistic world leaders, when it comes to their personal outlook, a guy like Jimmy Carter, who was a president who was so humanistic he had a hard time doing his job sometimes.

"Here's a guy who was probably responsible for less deaths as an American president than any other president I can think of in modern times and there's still, certainly, quite a few people who died because Jimmy Carter made a decision one way or the other."

He makes the sobering point, however, that men like Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon and Hitler killed millions but the only difference between the first four names on that list and the Nazi leader is people are still alive who remember those murdered by Adolf.

The millions killed by Alexander, Caesar and Genghis Khan? They're just historical statistics.

I'm in no way trying to justify or glorify Hitler's obvious madness and genocide. I just think it's interesting how the passage of time allows us to elevate men to the level of "great", simply because they did horrific and catastrophic things on a scale never before seen, to people we have no emotional connection to, i.e. the long dead.

Simone Weil, the French philosopher described by Albert Camus as "the only great spirit of our times" and who died during World War II of tuberculosis, made the point in 1940: "If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe."

I guess the secret is that if you're gonna kill millions, you better win the war.

The most obvious thing that jumps out at you when you put a list like this together is the absence of female names, which some might argue has to do with their historical exclusion and marginalisation, particularly when it came to leadership roles.

Except it doesn't really hold up.

Toregene Khatun was the Regent Empress of the Mongol Empire from 1242–1246 after the death of her husband, the Great Khan, Ogedei, third son of Genghis. She was easily the most powerful person in the world at that time and probably the most powerful woman in all of human history.

She had, perhaps, the greatest military force the world had ever seen at her disposal and controlled the majority of the two most advanced civilisations in the world at that time, China and Islam.

She was also, no doubt, a rape victim, having been "given" to Ogedei after her clan, the Merkits, was vanquished by Genghis.

That's another cute thing about history - woman are routinely described as being "given" or "becoming wives" after their families and friends have been murdered by their new husbands.

Some honeymoon, eh?

However, despite Toregene's indisputable significance, she's largely disappeared from history; you'd probably have never heard of her unless you were a Mongol history buff.

So, I guess, the other secret to being "great" and killing millions, is you not only better win the war, but be a man, too.

180 comments so far

Of the list, only Alexander the Great and the Genghis have achieved the prize.Julius did not make the grade as he was assassinated probably too soon for his supporters and too late for his foes. What about other less than edifying leaders. My personal favourite is Ethelred the Unready. A Saxon king. Then there are the Ricardians who wish to honour Richard III. Then Richard the Lionheart who was more interested in speaking French and fighting Crusades and left his kingdom to his brother Prince John to run off the rails. Russia has Ivan the Terrible. Australia well .... thankfully we don't have many greats and perhaps that is one of the things that makes it such a great place. No greats but a great place to live.No Footy player is really a great unless you really debase the term. Then again sportswriters do it every day.

Commenter

The Old Guy

Location

Marrickville

Date and time

February 18, 2013, 8:09PM

If Caesar wasn't great, how come his name was co-opted by cultures down the line to mean "King" (e.g. Tsar and Kaiser). This is in stark contrast to Pompey the Great, his colleague and rival, who is largely forgotten by anyone who is not a classical history buff. In many ways Caesar died at the right time - at the peak of his powers.

Commenter

Relentless

Date and time

February 19, 2013, 9:01AM

Russia also has Catherine the Great. And England also has Henry V, whose amazing victory at Agincourt made him also King of France and probably the most admired of the English kings among historians (at least that's what Churchill claimed - I was reading him just today).

Commenter

rudy

Date and time

February 19, 2013, 1:18PM

Hitler was not a great man. He was a raving loony psycopath who hoodwinked a nation and lead them, and the world, into the most destructive conflict ever. Not to mention his ghastly final solution. Tell the survivors of WW2 that Hitler was a great man and see what reply you get. What a tardy piece of journalistic opinion....55 million dead for nothing...

Commenter

Johan D

Location

St Kilda

Date and time

February 20, 2013, 8:28AM

The big issue here is what define's 'great'. To confine it to a willingness to commit violence and atrocities is ridiculously immature, demeaning to humanity, and confines most of the incredibly important moments that shaped history to invisibility.

It's remarkable that Elizabeth 1, who presided over England's Golden Age, or Victoria,who expanded England's Empire,weren't mentioned. As a number of non-violent influential men were mentioned I'll list a number of significantly influential women (violent and non-violent):

JohanDYou need to get Hitler in the context of the article instead of leaping straight into the obviousTheres a good boy

Commenter

Brenda Holmesby

Date and time

February 20, 2013, 12:41PM

Can Australia claim Captain James Cook or do you have to kill people? I am sure the small pox and STD's his crew carried about the Pacific claimed a few scalps, does that count?How about Magellan, Tasman, LaPerouse and Columbus? They were pretty great.

Commenter

Larry

Date and time

February 18, 2013, 9:08PM

Ummm, no you can't claim because he's English!Who is the idiot that says 'you have to order the killing of innocent women and children to become great'? What a sicko. On your list you had Jesus and Buddha, did they order the killing of innocents or have I missed something? Surely if a world leader didn't order the killing of women and children it would make them greater!

Commenter

Matheus

Date and time

February 19, 2013, 3:10PM

Time's man of the 20th century was Joseph Stalin why? because he killed the most people - though I doubt that he actually pulled the trigger on any of the 60m that are attributed to him.

So by extension is Christ great due to the many victims of: pagan Rome killing Christians, Holy Rome killing non-Christians, crusaders killing everyone? It's amazing how the numbers add up.

If not then Hitler’s not a killer at all and his absolute victim was his dog Blondie (though there’s not much documentation about his time with the artillery in WW1). This gets very grey very quickly doesn’t it?

Commenter

Dullsville

Date and time

February 20, 2013, 12:01PM

'On your list you had Jesus and Buddha, did they order the killing of innocents or have I missed something?' - Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live... although not strictly b'jesus words...